Must be strong. Must not get electronic Wrath upgrade.

Damn you Blizzard!

*shakes fist*

So - I've been back, what, a month? I'm already thinking about cancelling my Wrath pre-order and my account. I'm not sure entirely why I'm not enjoying it but these are the things that are bugging me, in no particular order.

1) Joining 'And The Wheelies' was probably a mistake. I thought a new bunch of people might make things interesting, but I *really* don't have the time for raiding and because I don't know any of them (asides from ex-SD people) I feel like an outsider. I think when you add this to the fact that their main focus is ten-man raids I think it was a mistake and I was only doing it because everyone else was. I suspect I have the WoW equivalent of social phobia as I *really* don't like playing with people I don't know...

2) Raiding. This is going to become such a major part of the game at 80 and I just don't have time for it. I *hate* using voicechat - it makes me feel really isolated from the world outside (and Thomas). I like playing on my laptop, with the TV or music on, being able to talk to Thomas and not be an anti-social git locked away in my study with headphones on.

3) I'm sad that Silver Daggers is now basically an alts guild. We don't actually have enough people who have main characters left in the guild to do an all-guild run of a five man. If anyone was actually interested in doing five-mans that was (see 1). Its stupid and silly and shouldn't matter but somehow there is a big difference between soloing when there are other people in gchat and when you're the only one. I think it's just the little things like being able to link everyone shinies that have dropped, or you are lusting after, or a new discovery in inscription. It even sours the achievement system (of which I will say more in my next point) as there is no one on to get the auto-announcements! I don't blame cellardoor28 - it was probably inevitable anyway - but I'm still sad.

4) Achievements. Everyone else is really getting into these and I quite liked them to start, but the novelty has worn off for me rather quickly. Its all a bit backwards looking and reflecting on past glories and times when, to be brutally honest, I had more fun playing. Strangely the achievement system brings on similar feelings as I got when I was on Facebook...

So - I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm out at the weekend and away next week anyway so won't be playing at all. I'm sure I'll be on in dribs and drabs before then but after Friday I just don't know...

ETA: I think part of the problem is that I don't actually think I'm very good at the game. OK I'm not awful and a complete liability, but I don't have any confidence that I actually add anything to a group. I know this sounds terribly like I'm begging for validation - but tbh it's *always* been the case to a certain degree. I guess this is what happens when you play a Mage for three years...

I've decided to stop my recurring subscription. This gives me about six week or so left.

Not sure how long I'll stay away - might be a while as I imagine July and August will be pretty busy with house moving stuff and I'm not sure how long it will take to get back online after we move.

I expect I'll be back in the autumn and definitely when Lich King appears (for Christmas?).

Well - there have been a few firsts in the last couple of days.

Sunday - Janney tanked for the first time. There was death and destruction, but mainly of Orcs, so I think that counts as a win! I took Ev, after much faffing about trying to remember how to play druid (and much sorting out of gear - luckily the quest rewards and drops have thinned things out a bit). I was uncommonly lucky on the rolls for greens, but failed to win any blues (except a twig of the world tree that was in a lock box - strangely I had just sold mine). Only slightly shakey moment was where I had to instarez Grenthallar as Ian hadn't been paying attention to his own health bar.

Monday - I went to my first level 70 instance, Steamvaults. We were probably a little bit underpowered for it (Liz at 68 priest in shadowspec couldn't quite keep up with the healing at the bosses so Sus had to take over) and the first boss in particular was problematic (I was the last man standing after 3 or more wipes and just managed to finish her off before she could hit me or cast another hurricane). I think it is a testament to our awesomeness that we *did* actually finish it. I got the dungeon set 3 (is that T0.75?) shoulders, a turban with a metagem slot as a quest reward and the battlecast hood pattern.

I'm now trying to decide on gems, especially the metagem. I didn't realise but metagems are cut from stones that are transmuted by alchemists so in theory it *should* be possible to get one relatively easily (*makes POM!-face at Liz*). Of course finding the jewelcrafting design to cut it may be a bit more tricky - guess I will have to keep an eye out in the AH. Metagems are interesting in that you need certain numbers of gems of specific types before you can socket them. Looking at what I currently have I think that I might be able to socket a Mystical Skyfire Diamond but I'm not sure if I'll be socketing an Insightful Earthstorm Diamond any time soon (unless a purple or green gem fullfills two of the requirements - would five purple gems and five yellow work?)... I guess I need to start mopping up the netherstorm and shadowmoon valley quests for cash (though I almost have enough to pay back Hoggy for the loan).

Other matters - the wonderful Sus/Hoggy combo had both the L70 mage books drop and very kindly passed them my way - L65 water *seriously* reduces downtime, so big yay to that. I've decided that, for now, I'm going to respec to arcane/frost, but losing Slow and keeping Ice Block. A lot of the talents in Arcane will boost damage on all trees - so seems the most sensible for solid DPS (rather than the mad burst of fire). I don't think I'm quite man enough to solo without some of the survivability that frost gives me. Blake has broken through the L40 barrier and is now L42, so hopefully I'll be able to get through the 40s without too much pain. Elkk mount is great (but strangely doesn't leave much in the way of footprints in sand or snow).

So - I have played a fair bit of WoW during my week off work and finally got Maddyn to 70 and Blake to 40. I thinking that once I've paid snowking back the gold he lent me to buy my flying mount (ace feature - I bought the Ebony Gryphon and spent most of last night exploring) I'm going to respec to Arcane as I decided to go for spellfire tailoring (partially because noone else was doing this, but mainly because I was thinking of respeccing at 70 to a more DPS orientated build than Frost anyway). I have this sneaking suspicion that this will make soloing harder, but should buff my DPS considerably in groups at the expense of mana efficiency.

I've been looking at the talent trees and the main options seem to be:

I rather like this Slow/Shatter build as it has the potential for an insane amount of crit and will make keeping the mobs away from me easier than a arcane/fire build. Main nuke would be Arcane Blast with Frostbolt and Ice Lance in reserve.

This is the classic 3 Minute Mage build which has got a whole lot nicer with the top-end arcane talents of Mind Mastery and Slow. Potentially very mana intensive, but Master of Elements may help with that (no idea if the mana returned is effected by Arcane Power or not though). I dread to think how much damage arcane missiles will do with this build - especially with full Wrath of Spellfire...

Of course the options open up a lot if I don't go as high as Slow (an AoEy build with Blast Wave for example)...

Any comments? Obviously for most of you this will be pure Theorycraft, but I'm interested in what people think.

I think the post-expansion honeymoon period has worn off as I'm currently feeling supremely 'meh' about all my characters. Maddyn is fun to solo (though I'm finding the badly written quest text combined with not knowing where anything is makes solo questing rather frustrating at times) - and a hell of a lot easier now that he is frost but I feel like a totally spare part in instances. Part of this is because Mages don't really have a role in an instance unless it is particularly AoE heavy (Strat, BRD, DM:E/W) or crowd control is *uber* important (DM:N Tribute) and part of it is because I'm not leveling very quickly (and even if I was magical DPS doesn't scale with gear anything like as well as physical damage does). Evandar would probably feel more useful in instances (instant heals/battle rez's, lots of shifting to suit the situation) but that would just mean more competition for leather loot so probably isn't a good idea either. I enjoyed doing the Draenei starting zones with my Shaman Blake - but I'm now back in Wetlands/Duskwood which I've recently done large chunks of with Wash and really not in the mood to do it all again. Dayna would be a good choice to level to 60+ and join the groups (hybrid utility, less competition for plate, good survivability for solo questing) but she's at that awful early 40s stage where everything seems like a grind.

Meh pretty much sums it up I think...

I'm toying with respeccing Evandar to a more hybrid/role-switching spec as I don't really think that having three almost identically specced L60 Druids is a good idea.

Things I definately want are Omen of Clarity, Feral Charge and Nature's Swiftness - everything else is negotiable:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=zzLV0oZxxos0rZExboMo

I quite like the idea of this - I could probably tank *and* heal pretty effectively with this build and wouldn't loose too much for soloing.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=0zjVboZxx0sZExboMo

More of a 'true' hybrid - outdoor kiting with imp Entangling Roots but still decent DPS in kitty form - resto tree stays the same.

Of course there are a myriad of variations on this theme - but these seem the most viable to me. I suspect that I would miss Faery Fire (Feral) with these builds - I guess I'd just have to get used to shifting more often when soloing...

http://www.wow-europe.com/en/info/underdev/burningcrusade/druid/spells.html

Some good stuff and some plain whacky stuff.

Cyclone - 6s banish - not sure how useful it will be

Maim - this looks bloody great - we still won't be able to stunlock people though
Lacerate - a bleed in bear form - good stuff

Flight Form - Yay! Only useable in Outland natch. I wonder if this will let you get to the areas only reachable on flying mounts?

Lifebloom - A HoT that does an instant heal when it finishes or is dispelled. Take that Shamen!

It is the talents where things get a little bit insane. The top level Resto talent is tree form! You can only cast Swiftmend and HoTs - but the cost less mana. Imp LotP looks really nice but I'd need to know more details of Mangle to decide (I forget what other classes have bleed effects). Force of nature also seems a bit crazy - not sure what the utility of three uncontrollable mechanical yeti type combat pets will be...

I haven't done an update on here for a while. Anyone would think I'd stopped playing. No, they really wouldn't would they?

Anyway - the current state of play:

Maddyn - I've been to all the 5 man instances with Maddyn now and I'm pretty happy with his kit. Have done a bit of PvPing (I mainly enjoy AV) and I've got to decide if I want to get an epic mount or not.

Evandar - Now L60 and mopping up a few quests for cash. Spent most of the weekend sneaking around Lower Blackrock Spire (stealth runs are a lot of fun) and we managed to get Janney the key to UBRS and most of the quests (well - the important ones that involve pets anyway). I did rather well for loot - two pairs of boots (Wildheart for healing/casting and a pair with AP for tanking) and the cash boost from the quest rewards was nice too. Having got the wildheart boots I decided I'd have a look on the AH to see if any of the BoE bits were available and I saw two pairs of gloves up for 10g BO. Needless to say I bought both pairs and immediately relisted one of them for 39g which had sold when I logged on this morning to check :D I don't often get good buys at the AH - but it was very nice to be able to make 25g (after fees) with no effort involved on my side at all. I'm trying to decide if I want to PvP a bit with Evandar and get to Sergeant so I can get a cheap epic Kitty (though I could get cellardoor28 to buy it for me I guess). Between all my toons I have about 550g - so I've got a while to go before I have to decide on who gets the epic mount first...

Otho - Otho is now a Tribal Leatherworker after much turtleicide in the general area of Steamwheedle Port. Finally means I'll be able to clear all those Wicked Claws out of the bank! Wolf hats for all (or at least that section of the Druidic population that are willing to pay 11g on the AH)! The Plan (such as it is) is to get him up to L60 next. Pumbaa is *finally* L40 - it strikes me that hunter pets level very quickly when you kill things around their level - but much more slowly when you kill things more than 2 levels higher than them. Most odd...

So, erm, yeah the new mage spells look rather spiffy. Shamans appear to be getting even more overpowered than they already are (dual wield FFS) and warriors getting a spell reflect scares the living bejeebers out of me (no more free HK). Immediate thoughts on the new talent trees make me think that Arcane is going to be a viable option again and Ice is probably what I'd go for (I don't care what they say on the forums - Water Elemental pets is right and proper for a Mage).

In other news there have been queues on Dragonblight the last few nights - what's that all about?

I really don't know how dsky has managed to get as far as he has in PvP as the battlegrounds system is just the most fustrating thing in the world.

The problem is basically down to the amount of time you spend queueing for the amount of action you actually see.

WSG - reasonable length queues at 60, but Mage is *so* not the right class for WSG - may try again when Ev hits 60 as it was quite good fun when I did the 40s level range.
AB - absolutely no idea - the only time I got in the match lasted about 5 minutes after a 30 minute queue
AV - 2-3 hour wait in return for similar length battle (by all accounts), main trouble seems to be that the weekday evening battles start around 8ish so you need to have been queueing since 6. This ain't going to happen as I don't get home from work until half past and if I've managed to have dinner and everything by 8 we are doing well. Last night I joined the queue at about half-eight (after my usual auctioneer scans and general admin stuff and handing in the previous night's quests with Ev) and by the time it got to half eleven the battle had been and gone and I missed it completely. So spent three hours doing nothing for no reason. Apologies for whining at people - but it really wasn't much fun at all... Maybe cross realm battlegrounds will help - but the most fustrating thing is purely down the the queue mechanics. You don't know how many people on each side are in the BG, you don't know how many people are in the queue and you don't know what your place in the queue is - so all you can do is sit around and wait. This wouldn't be so bad pre-60 - as you can bugger off and do quests - but at 60 you don't have much choice of non-instanced quests so you are left with faction grinding (and I've had my fill of furbicide and killing bugs in Silithus is both dull and, for me anyway, impossible to solo)...

Think I may take a couple of days off to see if I can shake off the grumpiness. I'm in werk over the weekend - so while I may be playing a lot to avoid the tedium (I'm supervising contractors rather than actually doing anything) so a couple of days off before then would be a good plan...

Been a fairly instance heavy few days. It started on Thursday when cellardoor28 was bored and wanted to do something other than Alterac Valley - I suggested DMN as a) snowking and I needed to hand in the quest item from DMW b) kalorlo and truecatachresis had never been c) it doesn't take too long and you can usually get some nice loot in the tribute. Went pretty well - though took a bit longer than anticipated - cellardoor28 did very nicely for Druid loot and DMN is always good for cash and runecloth. Unfortunately no tailoring patterns dropped in the cache, but this pattern did - nice boots, shame about the 100g or so worth of mats...

Friday involved finishing off Stratholm Scarlet side. We've pretty much got this down pat now - though we did manage to wipe on the first pull *go team*! I'm finding that my AoE is so much better post-patch - Flamestrike Shatter crits FTW! There is nothing that makes me happier than seeing a bunch of skellies incinerating :) Balnazaar was a touch more tricky this time (he actually did an AoE fear at one stage) but really not very difficult. Again - no major loot, but I'm pretty well kitted out (weapon is my main problem - I got Stoneflower Staff from DMW, but it looks like a L1 staff and is, well, green...) so I wasn't that bothered. I did win a rightous orb and a few large shards - so cashflow is pretty good.

Saturday post-lunch was zerging Sandfury trolls in Zul Farrack. I was indulged and allowed to attempt to tank. It was a good thing we were overleveled really - as I'm not very good at it! It was, however, useful practise and I kinda got to grips with it by the time we were at the stairs. We only wiped once - which was on the annoying rooting boss and his gazillion basiliks... cellardoor28 did well for loot (again) and the rest of us were a bit high for anything to be considered of too much interest. Later on I went over the The Hinterlands with danmilburn and wg to save Sharpbeak and fill the Ancient Egg. This involved me being healer and cracking out the mana gear I've been hording. Healing as a druid seems to mainly involve spamming Regrowth and Rejuvination - I really need to get used to having Innervate - the amount of times I've died due to forgetting I had it isn't funny. Innervating Warriors or Rogues is generally not a good plan either :/

The final instance of the weekend was Stratholm Undead. This took an awful long time because we didn't have the key (which basically meant we had to fight through all the undead we normally do to get to the Scarlet Bastion before we even got to the bit we needed) and the general problem of Stratholm p0wning us... This time I tried out the undead slaying set that I got from the Scourge Invasion. I *think* it made a difference (probably due to the set bonus of +2% damage) but it is very difficult to tell - it probably resulted in cheaper than getting my epic robe and gloves repairs anyway... Once we got to the undead area proper things went pretty smoothly - if a bit slowly. First major wipe was when at the spidery things - where we found more mobs inside the ziggaurat than we were expecting. Things started going downhill from there really - pulls went wrong on the abominations and then we had trouble with respawns and mobs that we had previously avoided aggroing for no apparant reason... We did, however, press on into the slaughterhouse to confront the dreaded Baron Rivendare. We wiped on the first go - completely my fault as I played the AoE on the skellies he summons completely wrong (using something that has a cooldown is bad) - eventually got back to him (more aggroing groups that were fine the first time) and this time I did little but spam arcane explosion (thank heaven it is instant cast now). This time we did it - mainly down to great healing from danmilburn as he had to look after me being squishy and AoEy and snowking tanking with that oh-so-annoying AoE shadow damage thing that the Baron does... So - with the Baron dead (and Wiki and Zara) the server goes down before anyone gets a chance to loot him. This was a touch annoying and really not what you need after a pretty intense evening's fighting :/ We all managed to get a perspective in the morning - and at least we didn't fall through the world or anything when we *did* manage to get back on - but it was certainly the lowest this game has made me feel so far... On the plus side (and there is one, honest) I came out with a Crimson Felt Hat (which should be useful in some circumstances) and the most annoying trinket in the game EVAH!

I'm all a bit instanced out for now - but I'm sure I'll want to have another crack at Rivendare soon and I'm trying to do my Druid class quest so we can go to Sunken Temple...

Last night I decided to have another go at PvPing - this time with Evandar. There were a few reasons for this - at L49 he is at the top end of the level bracket, druids appear to rock in Warsong Gulch and being a Night Elf Druid with Nightscape Boots means that no bugger can see me when I'm stealthed :D The battleground queues for that range weren't too bad - I think I was waiting about 15 minutes for the first and half an hour for the second.

The first battle was a bit of a whitewash - as I don't really know the battleground layout (having only played two other games) and the PUG was using what appears to be the standard alliance tactics of running around like headless chickens. The second battle lasted a good bit longer, I was joined by danmilburn and I actually managed to capture the flag! The main problem with WSG seems to be lack of coordination - what we really needed to do was to have an offensive team that could distract the defenders enough for me to get the flag and get out and into travel form. Once I get out of the Horde base it is just a case of a couple of people keeping with me to make sure I don't get jumped. While this is going on we need to have a team of defenders making sure the Horde aren't waiting for me and stopping them from getting *our* flag. It *really* isn't rocket science - but for some reason we always ended up having the entire raid at one end or the other of the map, which is a bit of a waste of time. While we didn't win either battle I did get quite a bit of honor and killed a really craptacular Warlock about 5 times :D Even though we lost both battles I think I will have got enough honor to make private - maybe a bit more if I make it a regular thing...

After these two battlesdsky had got a bit fed up with the L60 Alliance players being terrible and we switched over to Hellscream for some L10-19 WSG for which kalorlo joined us. Unfortunately we hit the big problem of L10-19 - twinks. The Horde side was a mixed bag of levels and classes - while the Alliance side was full of L18-19s well kitted out. They also had a nasty habit of graveyard camping - which is a bit childish really and not at all honorable... It was still fun - there isn't much you can do when a rogue is kitted out with dual cruel barbs and can one-shot you - and we did manage to get a few kills in and hopefully enough honor to get scout. I imagine the 20-29 battlegrounds suffer less from twinking - though I am vaguely contemplating fighting fire with fire and twinking Wash (who is already L19) as rogues seem to be a good class for that level battlegrounds. Silver Dagger Twinks Team anyone?

*delete as appropriate

I seem to have done little but play WoW while I've been off sick....

My main solo play time has been split between Evandar (I've *finally* got out of the L40 rut and am half way to L45) and my new Orc Hunter on Hellscream (Grishnack - currently L12 with a very pretty, but slightly squishy, red raptor called Dino). Evandar has mainly been doing stuff in Tanaris and Feralas (finishing off the last few bits in STV with the help of wg and danmilburn) and is now friendly with 3/4 of the Steamwheedle Cartel. Grishnack is actually proving to be quite fun - moreso than Zakalwe ever was. I think it is a combination of a class I know how to play (I never really got the hang of Shamen) and a race that doesn't slouch and make my back hurt looking at them (undead are particulary bad for this - combined with the fact that they are morally very dubious). I've got one quest left in Durotar then it is off to the Barrens. I've also played Tarwarth (Tauren Druid) a bit and he is L12 too now. I'm speccing him balance as I'm interested in playing a Druid in a totally different way from Evandar.

On top of all this solo faffing I have managed to do 3 instances in 4 days. This started off with the dual BRD runs o' DOOM on Friday. We had a good little team together and managed to get everything done - including the Emperor (the invisible cloak amused me muchly) so I got the yummy quest reward ring from that :) Nothing much dropped that anyone wanted (wg got some great robes off the Emperor though) - so we each got a large shard each and at some point we need to roll on the remainder. Only really tricky bit was the Lyceum (lots of mobs on a 30s respawn timer - only place we wiped). Saturday afternoon involved a run of LBRS which went OKish - though we did have a couple of nasty incidents (one involving spiders that was probably my fault and one involving Ogres that we just messed up). I got my Worg Pup, Spire Spiderling and won Beaststalker Bracers (which I sold to kalorlo for half-price, as I'm nice like that) though - so y'know, not all bad... Finally last night we went back (as Servalan) to Scarlet Monastry to do the cathedral. Went very well (even though there were only four of us) and incredibly quickly. I picked up the sword quest reward as it had lots of stamina and some spirit on it. Haven't decided if it is better than my Searing Golden Blade or not - I suspect if I get Seraphina to enchant it with Demonslaying I wouldn't notice the difference anyway...

Next up appears to be Razor Fen Down with Evandar at the weekend and I imagine there will be some random high level instance run (Strat Live again would be good so we can get the quest to kill Rivendale) at some point. I've spent a fair bit of cash in the AH - mainly on Thorium Bars (so that Servalan can turn them into widgets for Maddyn to hand in for the Darkmoon Faire) and the really nice Abyssal Trousers of Sorcery. I also bought a cheap stack of Felcloth to turn into Mooncloth Bags - as my bank is currently rather heaving...

http://www.wow-europe.com/en/info/underdev/testrealm.html

Lots of good stuff there. Some of the things I really like are:

Respecing cost less over time (I think it would cost 20g for my next respec - so I need to get it right post-patch)
Light's Hope Chapel upgrade to proper quest hub with an inn and more quests - I see a money making opportunity there
Flight Paths in Ratchet (side note - they seem to be turning Azshara into quite a travel hub)
Key 'ring' - yays! I have millions of the buggers clogging up bank space - no reason to forget them on instance runs now!
Easy instance reset! No more faffing about when trying to farm specific items.
But the best thing? The +25 2H agility enchant will glow green!!!

So - the Mage talents have been tweaked since the preview mainly for the better I think:

http://www.wow-europe.com/en/info/underdev/1p11/mage/talents.html

I'm trying to figure out what would work best. I think I'm going to stick with an Elemental Build (though they have put some nice stuff low down in Arcane now - so you aren't completely wasting points to get PoM, ImpCS and AP).

Initial thoughts are:

Fire for burst, frost for mana efficency

AoE-tastic. Probably a bit PvPish.

Frost heavy with the buffed Ice Barrier

Combustion build loosing ice block (so probably not worth it)

If I wasn't going Elemental I guess something like this or this might be feasible....

It looks like the Mage changes aren't going to completely change the role of the class, but it does address a lot of the issues (threat reduction and mana management in particular) that tended to lock you into using a certain amount of points in Arcane...

We finally know the identity of the new Alliance race - it *is* Draenei, though in a completely different form from how we have seen them before.

I'll be interested to see how they a) get them into Azeroth (presumably they will arrive as part of the pre-expansion world event that will open the Dark Portal), b) explain how they join the Alliance (currently the Draenei in Outland work for Illidan) and c) explain why they look more like Eredar (the original, pre-corruption, Draenei maybe?)...

I'll be fascinated to know what classes (in the screen shots it looks like one is bubbled - but it could be PW:S) they get and where the starting zone will be.

ETA: This dev interview gives the initially mooted classes (Warrior, Priest, Paladin, Mage and Hunter) - and yes, it *is* a paladin in the screenshot...

I haven't updated for a while...

Current state of play

Maddyn

Quite enjoying the 5 man instances. Have recently done Stratholm Scarlet sucessfully and spent the whole of Monday in Dire Maul. This means I now have my mage trinket (fire resist and mana regen - OK for instances I guess, but I'd rather dmg) and am an upgraded water cooler. I was much happier with my performance in Strat - though I probably need to coordinate more with dsky on the sheep/seducing as a Succubus seducing a sheep is really rather disturbing. One thing that I have discovered to be indespensible is Blessing of Salvation - 30% threat reduction means I can blast away without making snowking's life too hard.

Kitwise I have made my Robe of the Archmage (so much elemental grinding) which is really, really nice; got some nice fire boots from Balnazar (who was a complete pushover - either we rock or he was bugged); wg lent me the money to buy Magisters Bindings when they showed up on the AH at bargain price and I've done the first upgrade quest so they are quite a bit better now (once I've paid Aileen back I'll make a start on the next upgrades) and kalorlo gave me a sarong of firey wrath that had more damage on than the trousers I'd had since the mid-40s.

In my quest to make money I've been doing some serious fishing and last night I did the artisan fishing quest. I imagine this would be a right pita at L40 (as you have to go fishing in areas where there are mobs wandering about) but at L60 they pretty much ignore you. Provided you use a lure it really isn't that tedious... In the process of this I discovered a good spot for nightfin - which when turned into a mana regenerating soup seem to be almost as lucrative as stonescale eels... Fishing is certainly easier than trying to kill Elite Dragons that are fire immune and resist frost nova three times in a row...

Not sure what to make of the Mage talent preview - in theory it makes the current build I have much more viable and much more mana efficient. I do worry if it will lock mages even more into cookie cutter builds - just frost/fire or fire/frost rather than arcane/element.... Hmmm. Must play with the talent calculator. I'll be interested to see what songster makes of it all as a hard core raider...

Servalan

Not too much to report - dsky helped me do the L36 Warlock offhand item quest (well - the hard bit of killing the L40 elite demon) so she is pretty well kitted out in blues and +dmg gear (Searing Golden Blade, Spellpower Extreme Goggles, Warlock offhand and a very nice +fire dmg belt). Against my better judgement I've started doing Desolace quests (gods I hate the place - too big and, well, desolate) as I had to go there anyway to do Warlock quests. I guess it breaks up the STV monotiny... Will probably try and grind her up to L40 (firey horse o doom!) when I've paid wg back...

Otho

Did RFK and got my piggie (who is called Pumbaa). I can't decide which pet I want to mainly use for soloing - probably Pumbaa as the charge is rather nice and I can leave stuff on auto without him runing out of focus (Ferocious Howl uses *a lot* of focus) and he's a much less fussy eater than Dief. That said I'll try and keep both of them leveled. Otho is now L31 (Feign Death is aces in PvE - I've never actually used it properly before but it is a life saver when things go wrong) and happily killing stuff in Hillsbrad Foothills. Leatherworking is coming along nicely - trying to decide which of the specialisations to do - I'm currently veering towards Elemental (there are some nice agi pieces) though Tribal would be good too for the Devilsaur stuff. Dragonscale just seems like too much hassle and cellardoor28 can make two of the Black Dragonscale set pieces anyway (which would be the only bits I would want - the rest are much more Shameny).

I wouldn't mind doing a proper run at Scarlet Monastry with Servalan at some stage and I really ought to start playing Evandar again (maybe tanking Razor Fen Down would be a good start)... While it is nice having people run you through things it is difficult to get out of solo mode if you don't get the grouping practise in...

It seems to be the time of the year where LJ turns into a global talkshow (covering the gamet from Question Time, through This Morning to Trisha)...

Anyway - I do this slightly differently as I completely lose track of the questions otherwise. I have *one* post where people can ask me questions and *one* post where I reply to them all...

So - if you have some WoW related questions this would be the place to post them. In a new spin, which may or may not work, you can choose to ask one of my main characters a question and I will attempt to reply in character (Maddyn (L60 Human Mage), Evandar (L40 Night Elf Druid), Servalan (L36 Gnome Warlock) and Otho (L30 Dwarf Hunter) are the ones I've played enough to stand a chance of being able to do this)...

There is a run of Razorfen Krall on Friday and I decided I'd take the opportunity to tag along and hopefully tame one of the armored battle boars that reside within. As they are L28 this meant I needed to get two levels with Otho by Friday.

The first thing I did was some experimental taming with Oswain so I could see if shielding/healing made it easier or just broke taming. As it turned out BoP *before* I start taming seems to help a liitle bit (I'd imagine PW:S would have a similar effect) but it all goes a bit wrong if the taming has already started. Annoying git of the day was a NE rogue who decided to attack the raptor I was taming. Given that WoW is *not* made by Nintendo a stream of hearts between you and a mob does not indicate a super powered imba ability...

I also thought it would be a good idea to have a trash pet that I could abandon once I had found the boar I wanted. To this end I decided to train an Elder Ashenvale Bear so I could also pick up the Claw 4 ability while I was at it. Once my faithful Diefenbaker was stabled in Menethil Harbour I took the boat over to Kalimdor and took a trip around Ashenvale Forest looking for a bear. Fortunately I managed to find something quite near to the road with no other mobs around so the training was pretty straightforward. The then hearthed back to Menethil and started a campaign of Gnollicide for The Greenwarden. Bears do make nice tanks, though I'd forgotten how useless pets were until you can teach them Growl (can you teach them anything when they have negative training points?) but it didn't take too long before he had dinged a few loyalty levels and I could actually train him some useful stuff (Bite, Claw and Growl - along with stamina and shadow resists (as we'll be heading to Duskwood next)). During all this Gnollicide (and Oozeicide - I managed to get Sida's bag within the first 20 kills) cellardoor28 mentioned in guildchat that she had seen the pattern for Robe of the Archmage at a bargain price (~150g at the time - normally it goes for anything from 400-600g ) on medium with no buyout. snowking very galantly obliged me by acting as my broker and lending me the cash. We set our absolute limit as 250g (which was as much as Auctobot had on them) and spend a rather nervous half hour waiting for the auction to complete. In the end we won it for ~190g - which made me incredibly happy! I 'ported over to Darnassus to collect the pattern (the mail was being buggy and I didn't trust it) and hand over all the cash I had on me (90g).

Given that I now owed Hoggy 100g I was quite keen to pay this back asap - so last night I cleared my bags out of enchanting materials, made as much Goblin Rocket Fuel and Stonescale Oil as I had mats for, used Servalan's newly found Goblin Engineering to make the Rocket Fuel Alchemy recipe (75s profit on each one), made some mooncloth and transmuted arcanite. I then stuck all this on the auction house and went fishing in the hope of getting more Stonescale Eels (which I did - I have enough now for another two stacks of 10 which should sell for about 15g a stack). Turns out that the AH was on my side for once as everything that was worth big money sold quite quickly and by the time I went to bed I had made the 80g I needed to pay my debts (my bank character had about 20g on them). All I need to do now is grind the essences and a shiny epic robe will be mine!